PERSONAL BUSINESS: DIARY

PERSONAL BUSINESS: DIARY; A Wealth of Charity That Eludes Most Counts

By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON

Published: January 31, 1999

Los Angeles has a reputation as one of America's stingier metropolises. But a survey financed by the California Community Foundation suggests that the area's residents are more charitable than Americans over all.

National surveys show that about 68 percent of people give. In Los Angeles County, however, the figure was 73 percent, according to a survey of 611 residents conducted for the foundation by Field Research at the end of last year.

And these figures do not include a form of giving that is flourishing in Southern California -- particularly among Latinos. In the Los Angeles survey, 55 percent of Latinos said they had sent money, clothing or food to friends or relatives in other countries. Such giving is not picked up in most surveys because they ask about gifts to organized charities eligible for tax deductions, Michael Latner of Field Research in San Francisco said.

To get a broader picture of charitable activity in cities with large immigrant populations, said Jack Shakely, the foundation's president, ''we may need to rethink our traditional definition of philanthropy.'' DAVID CAY JOHNSTON